If-- For An Immature Age

“IF—” for an Immature Age If you can damn a warm January day As part and parcel of a worldwide curse, And not let the ignorance in you pipe up and say “Well, for winter, we could do a lot worse!”; If instead you long for the renewing snows Because they’re more needed than weather mild, Feeling proud how maturity in you grows, Then you will be an adult, my child. If you can endure springtime showers and grin With a broadening sense of consciousness, Ignoring your petty gripes when they begin And bless Nature’s great advantageousness; If instead you think of the wheat and flowers – Of bread for your offspring, with honey piled – Standing humbled mid the thunderstorms’ powers, Then you will be an adult, my child. If you can bear the worst August and July With nary a complaint against the heat, Knowing the insects need this time ‘fore they die ‘Cause much of the world’s covered in concrete; If instead you’re prosaic about the sweat And wipe your brow with a mind reconciled, Accepting that it’s better to give than get, Then you will be an adult, my child. If you can watch an autumn sunset go down And not think what you glimpse is beautiful Due to tons of sulphur-dioxide brown Never letting you see the sun in full; If instead you lament wicked pollution Covering the Earth as it’s now defiled And feel renewed to finding a solution, Then you will be an adult, my child!